A geneasurprise I received was a framed collage of photos from my fellow IHGS students as a leaving present before I moved back to New Zealand.

A genealogy conference/seminar/webinar from which I learnt something new wasLes Mitchinson‘s Report Writing course held in Petersfield, Hampshire.

I taught some members of the public how to start their family history research when I volunteered on the Ask the Experts sessions at Who Do You Think You Are? Live in Birmingham.

A genealogy book that taught me something new was Susan Moore’s Family Feuds: An Introduction to Chancery Records.

A great repository/archive/library I visited was the archives at Tralee Library in County Kerry, Ireland, where I viewed original workhouse records for the area.

A new genealogy/history book I enjoyed wasManorial Records for Family Historians, written by my cousin Geoffrey Barber.

A geneadventure I enjoyed was taking the kids to Belper in Derbyshire, and following in the footsteps of my 2 x great grandfather.

Another positive I would like to share is… after six years of study, 88 assignments, and one exam, I finally completed and PASSED the Higher Certificate of Genealogy from IHGS in Canterbury. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

Thanks go to Jill at GeniAUS again for her great Accentuate the Positive geneameme. You can read about the 2016 highlights of other geneabloggers on the GeniAUS website.

Once again Jill Ball aka GeniAUS has encouraged everyone to celebrate their positives of the last year with her geneameme Accentuate the Positive, instead of focussing on all those things that didn’t quite happen.

Here’s how 2014 panned out for me…

An elusive ancestor I found was Elizabeth Barber, my 3 x great grandmother. Well, I knew of her, but I had only circumstantial evidence (albeit very strong) to tie her with a particular Barber family from Brighton. Thanks to the efforts of my (now confirmed!) fourth cousin once removed and some DNA testing, we have established proof of who her family was. And I can now trace my Barber family back to the 1500s in Kent!

An ancestor’s grave I found was that of my 5 x great grandfather Nathaniel Phillip in Cockshutt, Shropshire, and it was a pretty impressive one. It’s even listed!

A social media tool I enjoyed using for genealogy was Facebook. This year I joined a number of genealogy-focused groups, and they have been a fantastic source of information and news.

A genealogy conference/seminar/webinar from which I learnt something new was every one that I attended! I joined the Guild of One Name Studies (GOONS) February, and enjoyed their annual conference in April and one day seminar in November. I took three very inspiring Pharos courses in 2014: One-Place Studies, Introduction to One-Name Studies, and Maps and Surveys. I also became a huge fan of Marian Pierre-Louis’s The Genealogy Professional podcasts, and attended two of her webinars.

A genealogy book that taught me something new was Colin Nicholson’s Strangers to England: Immigration to England 1100-1945.

A great repository/archive/library I visited was the Lichfield Record office in Staffordshire. The staff were extremely helpful, and very accommodating of my three children, so I was able to research for nearly two hours instead of the half hour I had envisioned.

A new genealogy/history book I enjoyed was a genealogical crime mystery – Nathan Dylan Goodwin’s The Lost Ancestor, the second book in his Forensic Genealogy fiction series.

It was exciting to finally meet GeniAUS herself, Jill Ball, at a one day GOONS seminar in November. I was so thrilled to meet my geneablogging hero!

A geneadventure I enjoyed was a trip to York in November with my fellow IHGS students, organised by the wonderful Pam Smith. We got a tour of the Borthwick Archives, a ghost tour of the town, and I had time to chase up some East Yorkshire ancestors, plus have a wee look at some ancestral villages. Not forgetting much mirth and merriment with some great genie friends.

On the ghost tour, in foggy York

Another positive I would like to share is I submitted five (yes, FIVE) sets of assignments this year towards my IHGS Higher Certificate, and am now over halfway through the course.

Thanks again to Jill for the opportunity to share the genealogical highlights of my year. You can read about the 2014 highlights of other geneabloggers through her GeniAUS website.

It’s fascinating where surnames originated and how they evolved. In April I posted about my 3 x great grandfather, George Tunnecliff. Or was it Tunnecliffe? With an ‘e’, or without? What was the “correct” surname?

My last lot of assignments for IHGS were all centred around surnames, and since we could pick a couple of our own family names to look at, I chose Tunnecliffe as one of them.

Tunnecliffe is actually a variant of the more common TUNNICLIFF(E). Reaney1, Titford2 and Hanks & Hodges3 agree that it is a habitational surname, taken from Tonacliffe in Lancashire, which was recorded in 1246 in the Lancaster Assizes as “Tunwal(e)clif”, from OE tun enclosure, settlement + wœll(a) spring, stream, + clif bank, slope, so ‘enclosure on the banks of a stream’.

Both Reaney and Hanks & Hodges give the variants of TUNNICLIFFE as: TUNNICLIFF, DUNNICLIFF, DUNNICLIFFE. The interchanging of T and D is not unusual in surnames, so the variants are not unexpected. Interestingly, there appear to be no variants of the name where the -CLIFF(E) suffix has developed into a -LEY ending, as has happened to a number of other surnames.

As with many other habitational names, the surname has become more common where an inhabitant from that place has moved or travelled away from his immediate area, which helps explain why the surname is more prevalent in a neighbouring county, rather than in the county where the place is actually located. Titford noted the name is mostly found now in Staffordshire, where I have traced back my family back to a Robert TUNNICLIFFE, whose son Edward was buried in 1821 at St Michael’s Rocester with the surname TUNNECLIFF inscribed on his gravestone. This variant spelling continued with all of Edward’s descendants researched so far, though in modern usage an E was usually tacked on to the end.

For our assignment, we were asked to look at death registrations in England & Wales from July 1837 to December 1851 and plot the surname’s distribution. When searching FreeBMD, I wanted to look for all instances of TUNNICLIFF(E) and DUNNICLIFF(E), including any variant and deviant spellings. To cover as many alternate spellings as possible within the confines of FreeBMD’s limits, I used the search strings: tu*n*cl*f* and du*n*cl*f. I also searched using different first vowels to pick up any stray entries, and found only one (TENNECLIFF).

The variants and deviants found are listed in the table below. The dominant variants are clear to see, although it is obvious that the DUNNICLIFF(E) variant is far less common than TUNNICLIFF(E).

Death registrations in England & Wales 1837-1851

Tunnicliff(e)

Deaths

Dunnicliff(e)

Deaths

Tunnicliff

206

Dunnicliff

44

Tunnicliffe

110

Dunnicliffe

9

Tunnacliffe

12

Dunicliff

6

Tunnacliff

11

Duncliffe

4

Tunnecliff

11

Dunicliffe

2

Tunncliff

8

Dunnecliffe

2

Tunnercliffe

6

Dunacliff

1

Tunecliff

5

Duncliff

1

Tunicliff

5

Dunnacliffe

1

Tunicliffe

5

Dunnecliff

1

Tunacliff

4

Dunneclift

1

Tunacliffe

4

Tunitcliffe

4

Tunecliffe

2

Tunincliffe

2

Tunnecliffe

2

Tunnycliff

2

Tunaclif

1

Tunercliffe

1

Tunnaclif

1

Tunnicleffe

1

Tunniclift

1

Tennecliff

1

Total

405

72

So where are all these Tunnicliffes and Dunnicliffes? From the death registration data, I mapped their distribution across England and Wales:As to be expected, the surname is mostly found in Staffordshire, and surrounding counties. Internal migration for work may have resulted in the instances found further south. Indeed, most of those counties are connected to the coast, which could suggest maritime or trading occupations.

I also wanted to look at whether there was a regional difference in the distribution of TUNNICLIFF(E) compared to DUNNICLIFF(E). Was there one point of origin for this variant, and would it be apparent from mid-19th century records?

The Dunnicliff(e) variant was more concentrated in Derbyshire and Leicestershire. Perhaps this was where the variant originated? However, it does appear in the South East as well, perhaps from an earlier migration of a TUNNICLIFFE family where the spelling changed, or a DUNNICLIFFE family moving recently south.

Edward Tunnecliff’s great grandson George emigrated to New Zealand in 1857 and brought with him the TUNNECLIFF(E) variant, which has now unfortunately died out there. It currently only found in very small numbers in the United Kingdom and the United States4.

I have just spent two wonderful days at Who Do You Think You Are? Live in London. I had promised myself last year that I would attend all three days in 2014, but with the days changing from Friday – Sunday to Thursday – Saturday, it was all a bit tricky, so two days again it was.

I had an early start on Friday morning to travel in from Kent in time for my first talk: Rosalind McCutcheon on Irish Poor Law records. It was a mix of background history and details of what records might have survived, all delivered in Roz’s inimitable style, and I’m hopeful I may find something for my Irish families. Next up was the “Celebrity Talk” in the main SOG theatre, though it differed in format this time, as it included the producers as well as Larry Lamb talking about the making of the show. It was a lovely insight into what happens behind the scenes, from the production point of view rather than just focusing on the celebrity’s experience.

Larry Lamb and WDYTYA producers, Olympia 2014

The next talk I attended was Researching Australian WW1 Military Personnel given by Helen V. Smith, and it gave me some great ideas for further research on my Kiwi soliders. After a short wander around the exhibit hall, I listened to Stephen Scarth talking about PRONI online resources, and while I was aware of many of them, there are some exciting resources being made available soon. I’d also overlooked the very useful research guides they provide on their website.

I had booked an Ask the Expert session in the afternoon, and the military expert I requested gave me some very helpful tips on where to go next in my research. Looking around this area, it didn’t seem as busy as in previous years. Perhaps it was busier on the Saturday?

Definitely the greatest value for me this year was meeting lots of lovely genealogists, some of whom I only “knew” via Twitter. I’m always inspired by those making a living out of genealogy, and love how passionate they are about what they do. A “Tweet Up” had been arranged at the end of the day in the Hand and Flower pub across the road from the Olympia, and there were so many of us it got a little crowded in our spot at the back of the pub! I managed to chat to a few people, before heading off to dinner with some fellow IHGS students.

After a late night, Saturday morning came a little too soon, but after a mammoth breakfast and a good brisk walk to the Olympia from my hotel, I was ready for another day of genealogical delights. I only attended two talks this day, with the first being on the Scottish Poor Laws from Patricia Whately. She gave an overview of Poor Law legislation in Scotland, and the many records that were created as a result. Kirsty Wilkinson has compiled a list of those records that survive, which can be accessed (along with other resources) on her website : My Ain Folk.

WDYTYA? Live, Olympia 2014

After another couple of meetups, Tweet Ups and walk around the stands, I was off to my second talk of the day: Janet Few on Putting Your Ancestors in their Place: Sources for Reconstructing 19th Century Communities. I found this a great follow up to the recent One Place Studies course I’d just completed with Pharos, and I’m keen to get a hold of Janet’s new book, Putting your Ancestors in their Place: A Guide to One Place Studies.

Somehow I managed to sign up for not one but TWO online courses – just couldn’t resist the “show special” prices. The Pharos One Name Studies course included a GOONS membership. Bonus! The Palaeography course through the National Institute of Genealogical Studies was one I’d been looking at doing, and I couldn’t resist the 50% discount, plus fountain pen. Double bonus! Both start next month, so I shall be a little busy, I think.

Over the two days I met some fantastic people, caught up with friends, and learnt a lot from the talks and discussions. There are rumours that next year’s event will be at a different venue (Birmingham?), but hopefully I will be there. WDYTYA? Live will also be making an appearance in Glasgow this August, which will be especially handy for those living further north. A fabulous excuse to visit Scotland, if you really needed one!

Saturday was another busy day at Who Do You Think You Are? Live. I had three talks booked, as well as an Ask the Expert session, but otherwise had more time than Friday to wander around the stands and catch up with some friends.

First up for me was “Your Irish Ancestors and the Law”, with Brian Donovan talking about the Petty Sessions order books that are available on www.findmypast.ie. The Petty Sessions courts handled most criminal cases in Ireland, apart from the most serious, and were held by Justices of the Peace without a jury. Record taking was made mandatory in 1851 and so only a few earlier documents survive. Among the order books are dog licence books (1850-1924) – every dog had to be licenced, and every farmer usually had a dog. Details include owner’s name, address, and occupation. Brian also discussed the Irish Prison Registers 1790-1924 on findmypast.ie, another great resource. I really enjoyed this session as I learnt a lot and Brian’s a very entertaining speaker.

I had a long break until my next talk and made the most of the time to chat with fellow IHGS students, and also to attend the inaugral WDYTYA? Live “tweet-up”, ably organised by Rosemary Morgan. It was a great chance to meet some of the people I’ve been following on Twitter, and to discover more folks to follow!

My Ask the Expert session was with Kathy Chater who gave me some great tips on how to chase up details of my 3xgreat grandmother Elizabeth Rose, born in Cape Town in 1845.

Nick Barratt’s presentation on the future of genealogy was interesting, and it’s apparently his last gig at WDYTYA? Live as he is moving back to the National Archives to head up their Medieval team (amongst others). Somehow I can’t see TNA keeping him away next year!

I then raced around like a mad thing to pick up a Flip Pal (thanks for speedy service, guys!) and the second-hand books I had scored earlier and were being kept for me by the bookstall, before leaping into the last talk of the day – Rosalind McCutcheon on The Registry of Deeds in Dublin. Wow. What a resource! I’ve heard Rosalind talk before, and so I signed up for this without knowing how much the Registry of Deeds could be of use to me in my own research. It was a great way to end the day, and I am itching to get over to Dublin to start digging away amongst those dusty tomes.

Overall, I loved WDYTYA? Live this year more than other years. I think the main difference was that there were more people I knew to chat to during each day, and I had chosen the talks I attended wisely. (Oh yeah, and I got my Flip Pal. And lots of books!)

Last weekend I attended the Who Do You Think You Are? Live exhibition held at the Olympia in London. It runs for three days, and I went along for the Friday and Saturday.

What struck me on Friday was how CRAZY busy it was in comparison to last year. I like going on the Friday, because I have this idea it’s a “quiet” day. Not so! I also filled up my time with four talks and the Keynote lecture with Q & A, so by the end of the day I was feeling rather overwhelmed.

It doesn’t look that busy in this photo, but it was!

The most illuminating presentation I attended was Debbie Kennett’s “A Beginner’s Guide to DNA”. A fellow IHGS student and I raced into the Olympia to get seats for her 11am session, and were not disappointed. Debbie gave a clear and concise overview of the three main tests you can take : Y-DNA (males only), mtDNA and Autosomal, and explained how they can be used for genealogical connections. I found it completely fascinating and now want to get everyone in my extended family tested!

In my Ask the Experts session I scored Dominic Johnson as my expert, and wished I had brought along my palaeography assignments instead of a question about my South African ancestor! Last year I had been inspired by her workshop on palaeography.

In the few spare minutes I had between talks, I managed to get my hands on a Flip Pal mobile scanner and find out all about it, with plans to buy the next day. I also purchased four books on my ‘Want to Buy’ list (hurray for show specials!):

Bruce Durie’s Understanding Documents for Genealogy & Local History, The History Press (2013)

Jill from Geniaus came up with a wonderful idea to celebrate the high points of 2012: Accentuate the Positive 2012 Geneameme, rather than concentrate on what we didn’t achieve during the year. So instead of feeling a bit depressed over all the things I didn’t quite manage to do this year, I get to feel a whole heap happier about all the cool stuff that happened!

An elusive ancestor I found was James Florey. Well, he’s not actually an ancestor, which I suspected but can now prove. He was the first husband of my 4 x great grandmother, Elizabeth Knott, and I couldn’t figure out what happened to him – it was as if he had abandoned his family and disappeared off the face of the earth. He hadn’t – he got transported to Australia for 10 years for sheep-stealing. Meanwhile, his wife found comfort in another’s arms, gave birth to my 3 x great grandfather (Henry Richard Florey/Pope), and eventually remarried. I have yet to find out what happened to James after he gained his Certificate of Freedom. Did he return to England, or stay in Australia?

A precious family photo I found was one that may be of my Nanna, Jean McGonnell, when she was young.

Possibly Myrtle Jean Louisa McGonnell (1915-2011)

An ancestor’s grave I found was my great grandparents and grandparents’ final resting place in Bromley Cemetery, Christchurch, NZ – thankfully with little damage from the earthquakes in 2011.

A newly found family member who shared a photo of my 3 x great grandfather (the previously mentioned Henry Richard Florey) and his family – I could finally put a face to the ancestor who has led me a merry dance through all sorts of records. Then, the wife of a fourth cousin sent me a family history of “our” Brosnahan family – amazing! And yet more family members contacted me with stories and photos, either through this blog or via my tree on Ancestry.

My 2012 blog post that I was particularly proud of was.. all the ones in February – I blogged every day that month.

My 2012 blog post that received a large number of hits or comments was difficult to work out as my Stats plugin fell over and won’t play nice, but I think it was my post on James Brosnan’s will.

A social media tool I enjoyed using for genealogy was Twitter. I love keeping up to date with genealogy news, and also with fellow IHGS students. I also joined a couple of groups on Facebook, and a Google+ community, and will see how those pan out over the next year.

A genealogy conference/seminar/webinar from which I learnt something new was all of them! I had a busy year starting with WDYTYA? Live in February, then several weekend seminars at IHGS later in the year, and finally Celia Heritage’s one day workshop on Fleshing out Your Family Tree. I think the one where I learnt the most was the Military Records seminar at IHGS, given by Les Mitchinson, as this was an area I wasn’t familiar with.

A genealogy book that taught me something new was Helen Osborn’s Genealogy: Essential Research Methods.

A great repository/archive/library I visited was the Perth and Kinross Council Archive in the A K Bell Library in Perth, Scotland. I didn’t have much time there, unfortunately, but enough to find the burial records for my 3 x great grandparents, Michael Burke and Bridget Flynn, and take a quick look at some of the Perth valuation rolls.

A new genealogy/history book I enjoyed was Ciarán Ó Murchadha’s The Great Famine : Ireland’s Agony 1845-1852.

It was exciting to finally meet my IHGS tutor, Celia Heritage! Plus twitter pals and fellow IHGS students at Canterbury in October, and also my Temuka cousins at the beginning of the year in New Zealand.

A geneadventure I enjoyed was my trip to Temuka in January, meeting cousins and visiting the family farm, and places where my grandfather grew up in South Canterbury. Also the trip to Scotland in May to visit the areas connected with my Burke and Philp ancestors. And visiting Deptford, London, with my mother to see where her grandfather was born and raised.

Another positive I would like to share is I finally indexed my research notebooks! And it has already proven to be a worthwhile exercise. Who knows, maybe this year the data may find its way into Reunion? I also worked on my IHGS assignments, submitting two batches this year, and received some not-too-shabby marks in return.

Thanks to Jill for a great opportunity to share my year of family history research! You can read about the 2012 highlights of other geneabloggers through her Geniaus website.

I don’t seem to be doing very well on blog posting lately! I’d love to say that it’s because I’ve been concentrating on my IHGS assignment work, but that’d be a big fat lie. There has been some family history research going on though, however not much filing and recording.

Most of the research I’ve been doing has involved travelling. Back in April I managed a quick whizz around some villages in Staffordshire where my Tunnecliff(e) ancestor George may be from. I had some helpful information from Tunnecliff descendents in Australia, and I’m hoping I can eventually prove a link to this particular Tunnecliff family.

Last week I was up in Scotland, chasing up my Burke and Philp ancestors, in Perth and Fife respectively. With three kids in tow, it was a whistlestop tour of a few key places, but I did manage 30 minutes research at the A.K. Bell Library in Perth, poring over burial registers and valuation rolls. I could have spent days in there!

A confession: my record-keeping is C-R-A-P-O-L-A. Things I thought I’d entered into Reunion are nowhere to be found. Yup, still stuck somewhere in one of the fifty gazillion notebooks I write everything into. *sigh* I really notice how bad things are when trying to gather together info for a research trip, or attempting to answer an email from a distant relative (I will be in touch soon, I promise, once I’ve sorted out my notes!)

On a more positive (sorting) note, I’ve just cleaned out my RSS feed reader and drastically cut my blog subscriptions down to about thirty blogs – in the hope I’ll actually get to read all of them. I think that’s about the only “housekeeping” I’ve done lately!

I had planned to tackle some filing today, but I seemed to have found a myriad of things to do instead!

I’ve just installed a WordPress plugin called Organise Series, so that it’s easier for my readers to follow a series of posts that I write on a particular topic. My Brosnahan posts are ideal candidates for a series, so I went ahead and set it up, but the series links box that is added to each post needs a bit of work, appearance- and placement-wise, so have turned the feature off for now. If you’re interestd in adding this plugin to your blog, check out Moultrie Creek’s article, which is where I got the idea from.

This week I need to spend some time preparing for WDYTYA? Live. I have two ‘Ask the Expert’ sessions, where I get to spend 20 minutes with an expert who will hopefully tell me all the answers what steps to take next in my research. The two areas I want help with are tracking down my Burke ancestors in Mayo, and finding the regiment and movements of a military ancestor. I want to collect together all the information and research I’ve done so far and type up a summary for each question.

I also want to choose a couple of photos to copy and take along to be dated – Jayne Shrimpton will again be attendance, though I found you need to get in early, or be prepared for a long queue! I’m hoping this year there will be an efficient system in place, perhaps even more ‘photo detectives’ available. (Must check out the guide and website to get the details before Friday.)

I’d like to follow up a little more on my Brosnahans, plus tackle some of my neglected IHGS assignments. I’ll get a chance to see my tutor at WDYTYA, so better do some work before I go!